Академический Документы
Профессиональный Документы
Культура Документы
Medieval Sourcebook:
Pre-Islamic Arabia:
The Hanged Poems, before 622 CE
The spread of Islam after 622 CE meant the eventual dispersal of the Arabic language from
Morocco to Mesopotamia - a vast region where it displaced numerous other languages. Arabic
speakers have long noted their language's poetic power and the prime example is the Qu'ran.
But Arabic literature did not begin with the Qu'ran. In the ka'aba [the "cubic" temple in Mecca
which was kept as the central shrine of Islam after all the religious statues had been removed],
there were a number of poems "hanged" on the walls. Some of these "hanged poems" were
allowed to remain after the Muslim order was established. They allow us some insight into the
literature of pre-Islamic Arabia.
It is common to note that the definite unit of such poem is the line. Each line was polished to
perfection, with overall poetic structure less important. The result is commonly described as a
"string of pearls". Whether such an approach is correct is open to question, but it certainly
impacts our reading of the Qur'an, a text which also seems to lack any overall organizational
principle, but which is full of highly polished lines.
Peter Heath, Thirsty Sword; Sirat Antar And The Arabic Popular Epic, (University of Utah Press,
1996)
The traces of her encampment are not wholly obliterated even now;
For when the Sonth wind blows the sand over them the North wind sweeps it away.
The courtyards and enclosures of the old home have become desolate;
The dung of the wild deer lies there thick as the seeds of pepper.
On the morning of our separation it was as if I stood in the gardens of our tribe,
Amid the acacia-shrubs where my eyes were blinded with tears by the smart
from the bursting pods of colocynth.
As I lament thus in the place made desolate, my friends stop their camels;
They cry to me "Do not die of grief; bear this sorrow patiently."
So, before ever I met Unaizah, did I mourn for two others;
My fate had been the same with Ummul-Huwairith and her
neighbor Ummul-Rahab in Masal.
Fair were they also, diffusing the odor of musk as they moved,
Like the soft zephyr bringing with it the scent of the clove.
Behold how many pleasant days have I spent with fair women;
Especially do I remember the day at the pool of Darat-i-Julju1.
On that day I killed my riding camel for food for the maidens:
How merry was their dividing my camel's trappings to be carried on their camels.
It is a wonder, a riddle, that the camel being saddled was yet unsaddled!
A wonder also was the slaughterer, so heedless of self in his costly gift!
Then the maidens commenced throwing the camel's fesh into the kettle;
The fat was woven with the lean like loose fringes of white twisted silk.
She repulsed me, while the howdah was swaying with us;
She said, "You are galling my camel, Oh Imru-ul-Quais, so dismount."
Then I said, "Drive him on! Let his reins go loose, while you turn to me.
Think not of the camel and our weight on him. Let us be happy.
There was another day when I walked with her behind the sandhills,
But she put aside my entreaties and swore an oath of virginity.
Oh, Unaizah, gently, put aside some of this coquetry.
If you have, indeed, made up your mind to cut off friendship with me, then do it kindly or gently.
Has anything deceived you about me, that your love is killing, me,
And that verily as often as you order my heart, it will do what you order?
And your two eyes do not flow with tears, except to strike me with arrows in my broken heart.
Many a fair one, whose tent can not be sought by others, have I enjoyed playing with.
I passed by the sentries on watch near her, and a people desirous of killing me;
If they could conceal my murder, being unable to assail me openly.
I passed by these people at a time, when the Pleiades appeared in the heavens,
As the appearance of the gems in the spaces in the ornamented girdle, set with pearls and gems.
Then she said to me, "I swear by God, you have no excuse for your wild life;
I cannot expect that your erring habits will ever be removed from your nature."
I went out with her; she walking, and drawing behind us, over our footmarks,
The skirts of an embroidered woolen garment, to erase the footprints.
I drew the tow side-locks of her head toward me; and she leant toward me;
She was slender of waist, and full in the ankle.
In complexion she is like the first egg of the ostrich---white, mixed with yellow.
Pure water, unsullied by the descent of many people in it, has nourished her.
She turns away, and shows her smooth cheek, forbidding with a glancing eye,
Like that of a wild animal, with young, in the desert of Wajrah.
And a perfect head of hair which, when loosened, adorns her back,
Black, very dark-colored, thick like a date-cluster on a heavily laden date-tree.
Her curls creep upward to the top of her head;
And the plaits are lost in the twisted hair, and the hair falling loose.
And she meets me with a slender waist, thin as the twisted leathern nose-rein of a camel.
Her form is like the stem of a palm-tree bending over from the weight of its fruit.
In the morning, when she wakes, the particles of musk are lying over her bed.
She sleeps much in the morning; she does not need to gird her waist with a working dress.
She gives with thin fingers, not thick, as if they were the worms of the desert of Zabi,
In the evening she brightens the darkness, as if she were the light-tower of a monk.
Toward one like her, the wise man gazes incessantly, lovingly.
She is well proportioned in height between the wearer of a long dress and of a short frock.
The follies of men cease with youth, but my heart does not cease to love you.
Many bitter counselors have warned me of the disaster of your love, but I turned away from
them.
Many a night has let down its curtains around me amid deep grief,
It has whelmed me as a wave of the sea to try me with sorrow.
Then I said to the night, as slowly his huge bulk passed over me,
As his breast, his loins, his buttocks weighed on me and then passed afar,
"Oh long night, dawn will come, but will be no brighter without my love.
You are a wonder, with stars held up as by ropes of hemp to a solid rock."
At other times, I have filled a leather water-bag of my people and entered the desert,
And trod its empty wastes while the wolf howled like a gambler whose family starves.
Early in the morning, while the birds were still nesting, I mounted my steed.
Well-bred was he, long-bodied, outstripping the wild beasts in speed,
Swift to attack, to flee, to turn, yet firm as a rock swept down by the torrent,
Bay-colored, and so smooth the saddle slips from him, as the rain from a smooth stone,
Thin but full of life, fire boils within him like the snorting of a boiling kettle;
He continues at full gallop when other horses are dragging their feet in the dust for weariness.
A boy would be blown from his back, and even the strong rider loses his garments.
Fast is my steed as a top when a child has spun it well.
He has the flanks of a buck, the legs of an ostrich, and the gallop of a wolf.
From behind, his thick tail hides the space between his thighs, and almost sweeps the ground.
When he stands before the house, his back looks like the huge grinding-stone there.
The blood of many leaders of herds is in him, thick as the juice of henna in combed white hair.
As I rode him we saw a flock of wild sheep, the ewes like maidens in long-trailing robes;
They turned for flight, but already he had passed the leaders before they could scatter.
He outran a bull and a cow and killed them both, and they were made ready for cooking;
Yet he did not even sweat so as to need washing.
We returned at evening, and the eye could scarcely realize his beauty
For, when gazing at one part, the eye was drawn away by the perfection of another part.
But come, my friends, as we stand here mourning, do you see the lightning ?
See its glittering, like the flash of two moving hands, amid the thick gathering clouds.
Its glory shines like the lamps of a monk when he has dipped their wicks thick in oil.
I sat down with my companions and watched the lightning and the coming storm.
So wide-spread was the rain that its right end seemed over Quatan,
Yet we could see its left end pouring down on Satar, and beyond that over Yazbul.
So mighty was the storm that it hurled upon their faces the huge kanahbul trees,
The spray of it drove the wild goats down from the hills of Quanan.
The clouds poured forth their gift on the desert of Ghabeet, >till it blossomed
As though a Yemani merchant were spreading out all the rich clothes from his trunks,
As though the little birds of the valley of Jiwaa awakened in the morning
And burst forth in song after a morning draught of old, pure, spiced wine.
As though all the wild beasts had been covered with sand and mud, like the onion's root-bulbs.
They were drowned and lost in the depths of the desert at evening.
The Poem of Antar
Have the poets left in the garment a place for a patch to be patched by me;
and did you know the abode of your beloved after reflection?
The vestige of the house, which did not speak, confounded thee,
until it spoke by means of signs, like one deaf and dumb.
And verily you have occupied in my heart the place of the honored loved one,
so do not think otherwise than this, that you are my beloved.
When she captivates you with a mouth possessing sharp and white teeth,
sweet as to its place of kissing, delicious of taste.
As if she sees with the two eyes of a young, grown up gazelle from the deer.
It was as though the musk bag of a merchant in his case of perfumes
preceded her teeth toward you from her mouth.
The fly enjoyed yet alone, and so it did not cease humming,
as is the act of the singing drunkard;
The young ostriches flock toward him, as the herds of Yemenian camels
flock to a barbarous, unintelligible speaker.
And she swerves away with her right side from the fear of
one, whistling in the evening, a big, ugly-headed one;
From the fear of a cat, led at her side, every time she
turned toward him in anger, he met her with both claws and mouth.
She knelt down at the edge of the pool of Rada', and groaned
as though she had knelt on a reed, broken, and emitting a cracking noise.
And the sweat on the back was as though it were oil or thick pitch,
with which fire is lighted round the sides of a retort.
Her places of flexure were wetted with it and she lavishly poured of it,
on a spreading forelock, short and well-bred.
The length of the journey left her a strong, well-built body, like a high palace,
built with cement, and rising high; and feet like the supports of a firmly pitched tent.
And surely I recollected you, even when the lances were drinking my blood,
and bright swords of Indian make were dripping with my blood.
If you lower your veil over yourself in front of me, of what use will it be?
for, verily, I am expert in capturing the mailed horseman.
Praise me for the qualities which you know I possess, for,
verily, when I am not ill-treated, I am gentle to associate with.
And, verily, I have drunk wine after the midday heats have subsided,
buying it with the bright-stamped coin.
And many a husband of a beautiful woman, I have left prostrate on the ground,
with his shoulders hissing like the side of the mouth of one with a split lip.
My two hands preceeded him with a hasty blow, striking him before he could strike me;
and with the drops of blood from a penetrating stroke, red like the color of Brazil wood.
He who was present in the battle will inform you that verily I rush into battle,
but I abstain at the time of taking the booty.
And many a fully-armed one, whom the warriors shunned fighting with,
neither a hastener in flight, nor a surrenderer;
My hands were generous to him by a quick point with a straightened spear strong in the joints;
Inflicting a wound wide of its two sides, the sound of the flow of blood from it leads
at night the prowling wolves, burning with hunger.
I rent his vesture with a rigid spear,
for the noble one is not forbidden to the spears.
Then I left him a prey for the wild beasts, who seize him,
and gnaw the beauty of his fingers and wrist.
When he saw that I had descended from my horse, and was intending killing him,
he showed his teeth, but without smiling.
I pierced him with my spear, and then I set upon him with my Indian sword
pure of steel, and keen.
A warrior, so stately in size as if his clothes were on a high tree:
soft leather shoes are worn by him and he is not twinned.
In the thick of the battle, of which the warriors do not complain of the rigors,
except with an unintelligible noise.
When my people) defended themselves with me against the spears of the enemy,
I did not refrain from the spears through cowardice,
but the place of my advance had become too strait.
When I heard the cry of Murrah rise, and saw the two sons of Rabi'ah in the thick dust,
While the tribe of Muhallam were struggling under their banners,
and death was under the banners of the tribe of Mulhallam,
I made sure that at the time of their encounter there would be a blow,
which would make the heads fly from the bodies,
as the bird flies from off her young ones sitting close.
When I saw the people, while their mass advanced, excite one another to fight,
I turned against them without being reproached for any want of bravery.
They were calling "O 'Antarah," while the coats of mail shone with close rings,
shining as though they were the eyeballs of frogs floating in a wavy pond.
I did not cease charging the enemy, with the prominent part of his throat and breast,
until he became covered with a shirt of blood.
If he had known what conversation was, he would have complained with words,
and verily he would have, had he known speech, talked with me.
While the horses sternly frowning were charging over the soft soil,
being partly the long-bodied mares, and partly the long-bodied, well-bred horses.
The lances of the tribe of Bagheez intercepted you and the perpetrators of the war
set aside those who did not perpetrate it.
And, verily, I turned the horse for the attack, while his neck
was bleeding, until the horses began to shun me.
And verily I feared that I should die, while there has not
yet been a turn for war against the two sons of Zamzam;
"The wild cows and the white deer are wandering about
there, one herd behind the other, while their young are spring-
ing up from every lying-down place.
"They kept the hill of Qanan and the rough ground about
it on their hand; while there are many, dwelling in Qanan,
the shedding of whose blood is lawful and unlawful.
"An oath, that you are verily two excellent chiefs, who
are found worthy of honor in every condition, between ease
and distress.
"The two endeavorers from the tribe of Ghaiz bin Murrah
strove in making peace after the connection between the
tribes had become broken, on account of the shedding of blood.
"And indeed you said, 'if we bring about peace perfectly by the spending
of money and the conferring of benefits, and by good words,
we shall be safe from the danger of the two tribes, destroying each other.'
"And he had concealed his hatred, and did not display it,
and did not proceed to carry out his intention until he got a
good opportunity.
"Then he attacked his victim from 'Abs, but did not cause
fear to the people of the many houses, near which death had
thrown down his baggage.
"And he, who shows kindness to one not deserving it, his
praise will be a reproach against him, and he will repent of
having shown kindness.
"And he who does not repulse with his weapons from his
tank, will have it broken; and he who does not oppress the
people will be oppressed.
"He, who does not cease asking people to carry him, and
does not make himself independent of them even for one day
of the time, will be regarded with disgust.
"The tongue of a man is one half, and the other half is his
mind, and here is nothing besides these two, except the shape
of the blood and the flesh.
Source.
From: Charles F. Horne, ed., The Sacred Books and Early Literature of the East, (New York:
Parke, Austin, & Lipscomb, 1917), Vol. V: Ancient Arabia, pp. 19-40.
Scanned by Jerome S. Arkenberg, Cal. State Fullerton. The text has been modernized by Prof.
Arkenberg.
This text is part of the Internet Medieval Source Book. The Sourcebook is a collection of public
domain and copy-permitted texts related to medieval and Byzantine history.
Unless otherwise indicated the specific electronic form of the document is copyright. Permission
is granted for electronic copying, distribution in print form for educational purposes and personal
use. If you do reduplicate the document, indicate the source. No permission is granted for
commercial use.